English

On the Analysis Dependence of DESI Dynamical Dark Energy

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-09-18 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We continue scientific scrutiny of the DESI dynamical dark energy (DE) claim by explicitly demonstrating that the result depends on the analysis pipeline. Concretely, we define a likelihood that converts the w0waw_0 w_aCDM model back into the (flat) Λ\LambdaCDM model, which we fit to DESI constraints on the Λ\LambdaCDM model from DR1 Full-Shape (FS) modelling and BAO. We further incorporate CMB constraints. Throughout, we find that w0w_0 and waw_a are within 1σ1 \sigma of the Λ\LambdaCDM model. Our work makes it explicit that, in contrast to DR1 and DR2 BAO, there is no dynamical DE signal in FS modelling, even when combined with BAO and CMB. Moreover, one confirms late-time accelerated expansion today (q0<0)(q_0 < 0) at 3.4σ \gtrsim 3.4 \sigma in FS modelling + BAO. On the contrary, DR1 and DR2 BAO fail to confirm q0<0q_0 < 0 under similar assumptions. Our analysis highlights the fact that trustable scientific results should be independent of the analysis pipeline.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.19029,
  title  = {On the Analysis Dependence of DESI Dynamical Dark Energy},
  author = {Eoin Ó Colgáin and Saeed Pourojaghi and M. M. Sheikh-Jabbari},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.19029},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 images; v2 appendix added with consistency check of method